Aborigines are Australia's indigenous people. Recent government statistics counted approximately 400,000 aboriginal people, or about 2% of Australia's total population.
Australian Aborigines migrated from somewhere in Asia (Indonesia) at least 30,000 years ago. Though they comprise 500–600 distinct groups, aboriginal people possess some unifying links. Among these are strong spiritual beliefs that tie them to the land; a tribal culture of storytelling and art; and, like other indigenous populations, a difficult colonial history.
Aborigines have survived harsh desert conditions and have a detailed knowledge of the plants, animals and water sources available in the country.
The oldest skeleton found in Australia was discovered at Lake Mungo in south-west New South Wales, is believed to be 38,000 years old, and bears traces of ceremonial ochre. This is thought to be the oldest sign of ochre use ever discovered.
Unlike most other races, Aboriginals were not cultivators, relying instead on a form of controlled burning of vegetation known as 'fire-stick farming'. They did not develop a sense of land ownership, although Aboriginal children were taught from an early age that they belonged to the land and must respect tribal boundaries. Tribes returned to particular sites to bury their dead. Some areas were designated sacred sites because of their association with the Dreamtime, the time when the earth was formed and cycles of life and nature were initiated.
Aboriginal legends, songs and dances tell of powerful spirits who created the land and people during the Dreamtime. There is no written Aboriginal language and most of the 600 tribes spoke different dialects and languages. They rarely met except on ceremonial occasions. The tradition of the Dreamtime, however, was a unifying force and rock paintings depicting this creation period can be found dotted throughout the country. Some of the most striking and best preserved of these can be viewed at rock galleries in Kakadu National Park and other parts of northern Australia.
The arrival of white people gradually brought an end to the traditional Aboriginal way of life, when settlement began to encroach on tribal lands. Today, most Aborigines live in cities and towns or in isolated settlements near tribal lands. Few continue their nomadic ways. In recent years, white Australians have become more sensitive to the plight of Aborigines, resulting in increased health and educational services, greater recognition of Aboriginal land rights and a growing appreciation of Aboriginal culture. Specialised galleries display Aboriginal art, tools, musical instruments and artefacts. These are highly valued and avidly sought by collectors all over the world.
The government of Australia has a very poor record when it comes to treatment of its Aboriginal citizens. Indigenous Australians were dispossessed of their land, despised for their culture, and marginalized, abused, and murdered. Perhaps most notorious of all the Australian policies were those that led to what has become known as the Stolen Generations. Under several federal and state programs that continued into the 1970s, the government forcibly removed Aboriginal children from their families and sent them to white families and church-run institutions for cultural reprogramming. A recent national report on the policies found that there was not a single Indigenous family that did not have at least one child taken away. Despite the deliberate genocidal nature of these programs, the government for many years refused to apologize for them. That same hostile attitude toward Aboriginal peoples was reflected in the Australian government’s long and vigorous opposition to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Fortunately, there have been improvements in the past couple of years. A change in administration led to a national apology from the government for the Stolen Generations, and the country as a whole celebrates Sorry Day. The new administration also reversed the country’s opposition to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. But there is still along way to go. Indigenous peoples on average live 17 years less than non-Indigenous people, and every measure of social and physical welfare, from infant mortality to nutrition to health, housing, education, and employment, is significantly lower for Aboriginal Australians than for non-Indigenous Australians. And all of the negative markers for disenfranchised populations—imprisonment, domestic violence, alcoholism—are much higher for Aboriginal peoples. An Aboriginal man is 13 times as likely to be in jail as a non-Indigenous Australian, and an Indigenous teenager is 28 times more likely to be in jail.
The government is making efforts to address some of these imbalances, but their handling of child abuse in Indigenous communities demonstrates how far they have to go. They enacted a set of programs that essentially let the government take control of Indigenous communities and undermined their land rights.
Indigenous groups in Australia are increasingly well organized and successful. They have in recent years made some impressive gains in land claims, but the process of claiming land rights and the legal framework in which it operates still strongly favors the state and creates unnecessary hurdles for Indigenous Peoples. Most original Indigenous land has not been restored yet.
didgeridoos - one of the unique artefacts developed by Australian Aboriginal people
Nomadic Brilliance
Traditional Australian Aborigines lived a nomadic life, following the seasons and the food.With very few simple tools, used with incredible skill, the Aboriginal learned to live in the harsh and inhospitable Australian outback
It's possible that the first Aborigines in Australia hunted the Australian megafauna - giant kangaroos, giant wombat etc. to extinction.
Maybe that was when Aborigines learned to take care of natural resources and move to new hunting grounds before the old ones are depleted beyond repair.
When at rest, Aborigines lived in open camps, caves or simple structures made from bark, leaves or other vegetation. Their technology was both simple and sophisticated. Above all, it was appropriate for their way of life - ideally matched to the constraints of nomadic life.
The modern notion of possessions is alien to traditional Aboriginal culture. Material things were shared within groups. The idea that an individual could 'own' land was foreign to Aboriginal thinking.
Colonists
When Europeans first began to colonise Australia, towards the end of the 18th century AD, they found cultures and environments which, in hindsight, were of incalculable value.
Much of this ancient legacy has been destroyed forever in the subsequent two centuries.
Contact between new settlers, under imperial British rule, and Australia's indigenous people, led to the decimation of many Aboriginal groups due to disease, dispossession and in tens of thousands of cases, outright murder.
As populations declined and were fragmented, many unique linguistic and cultural traditions as well as valuable knowledge about the land and its fauna and flora were lost forever.
Australia's wild landscape - like Aboriginal culture, much, but not all, of it has been destroeyed since European invasion
Land theft Seizure of Australia by British Imperial forces was claimed to take place under British law.
Even at that time, the British legal system had developed some traditions of fair dealings with native populations inside colonies.
These constraints were not applied on the ground in Australia. Invasion and blatant land theft by settlers were justified under the astonishing legal fiction of "Terra Nullius" - the notion that Australia was effectively unoccupied before British colonisation.
The lack of indigenous systems of land ownership (in the European tradition of private land ownership) was used to give credence the idea of Terra Nullius. The basic idea was that it was impossible to rob Aboriginal people of land, as they'd previously never owned land.
Over two centuries, the continent was progressively stolen from Aboriginal people. Settlers moved in and appropriated the overwhelming majority of Australia - either for private use or in the name of the British Crown.
Even after Australia was declared independent in 1901, Aborigines continued to be marginal to the new nation and were debarred from becoming citizens by the 1902 Australian Constitution. Citizenship was granted to Aborigines only following a national referendum in 1967.
Aboriginal groups due to disease, dispossession and in tens of thousands of cases, outright murder.
As populations declined and were fragmented, many unique linguistic and cultural traditions as well as valuable knowledge about the land and its fauna and flora were lost forever.
this South Australian wallart says it all...
RACISM
As recently as the 1950's, as many as one tenth of Aboriginal babies were removed from their natural parents and taken into foster care by non-Aboriginal families, in the belief this was to everyone's benefit.
This quite recent forced removal of children on a massive scale - known as the 'Stolen Generation' - came to widespread attention only in the late 1990's.
The current Australian Government has refused to make a formal apology over the 'Stolen Generation' (in contrast to President Clinton's apology for the historical wrong of black slavery, and successive Australian Governments' demands for the Japanese to give a full apology for crimes committed during World War 2).
Around 250 separate languages have been recorded throughout Australia. The following is a handful of commonly used Aboriginal words, as well as concepts which briefly describe the Aboriginal experience:
BARRAMUNDI - a large river fish found in the warm, northern waters of Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland. It is highly valued for its wonderful flavour by both Aborigines and Europeans.
BILLABONG - a small pool or lagoon.
BOOMERANG- used as both a weapon and a clapping instrument to accompany songs and dances.
BORA- initiation ceremony at which boys are admitted into the responsibilities of manhood. Bora Rings, or initiation grounds, occurred in pairs, with a larger ring and a smaller ring joined by an external pathway. The boys were brought to the larger ring by a female relative and handed over to the older men who took them to the smaller ring for the secret parts of the ceremony.
COOEE - a long, shrill call originally used by an Aborigine to communicate with someone at a distance. It has been widely adopted as a signal, especially in the bush.
COOLAMON - wooden vessel for holding water, seeds or a baby, often made from a hollowed knot of a tree. Also called a pitchi.
CORROBOREE - a dance ceremony which may be sacred or informal. In corroborees of ritual significance the dancers act out ancestral scenes.
DIDGERIDOO - long cylindrical wind instrument - usually 90-150 cm in length - originally from Arnhem Land - known as the Yidaki. Made of wood and often painted with the owner's own totem, it produces a low-pitched, resonant sound.
DREAMING - the spiritual identification of an individual or an object with a place, or with a species of plant or animal. A Dreaming Path is a place or route of Dreamtime significance along which Dreamtime ancestors travelled.
DREAMTIME - the time of creation; a set of events beyond living memory which shaped the physical, spiritual and moral world. The Dreamtime stories tell of the time when the Ancestral Beings rose from the earth in animal and human forms and created the landscape as we now see it. Dreaming is an English word, and each Aboriginal language has its own word with the same or similar meaning.
GUNYAH - a temporary bark shelter built by traditional Aborigines.
KOORI - the name Aborigines from the regions that now encompass most of New South Wales and Victoria use to refer to themselves.
MIMI - the spirit people depicted in rock and bark paintings from western Arnhem Land. Believed to be trickster spirits, the Mimi disappear into the rock walls of caves and shelters and sometimes leave their shadows behind, which appear as paintings. Paintings of the Mimi are characterised by their graceful, elongated shape.
NULLA NULLA - a hardwood club used in fighting and hunting.
PUKAMANI - ceremonial burial poles from the Tiwi communities on Bathurst and Melville Islands, north of Darwin.
RAINBOW SERPENT - a widely venerated spirit of Aboriginal mythology.
WALKABOUT - a journey on foot, as undertaken by an Aborigine in order to live in the traditional way. It originally referred to a hunting and gathering trip that would last from a few hours to a few days.
English is regarded as the national language of Australia.
In 1996, 85% of the population spoke only English at home and less than 1% of the population could not speak English at all. However, apart from English and Indigenous languages, more than 160 other languages were also spoken in the home.
Although languages other than English, such as German and Chinese languages, were spoken in Australia after European settlement, today's linguistic diversity stems largely from immigration since 1945.
People whose English language skills are lacking face practical problems in education, employment, and access to services. Where there is a lack of a common language there is also a need for interpreter and translation services, and programs of English instruction in schools and in other educational institutions. At the same time, many people from a non-English speaking background desire to see the use of their home language continue in Australia, for reasons of cultural continuity and identity.
In 1996 the most commonly spoken language was Italian, its 367,300 speakers making up 2.3% of the Australian population aged five years or more.
Greek (1.6% of Australians), Cantonese (1.2%), Arabic (1.0%), and Vietnamese (0.8%) ranked next. These five languages were each spoken at home by more than 100,000 people. A further 10 languages were each spoken by more than 40,000 people. In total, people who spoke one of the 15 most common languages accounted for 72% of speakers of a language other than English, and 11% of Australia's population.
The ranking of languages partly reflects the greater numbers of immigrants who have arrived from particular countries, and the number of children they have had in Australia. However, not all immigrants who speak a language other than English continue to use it at home throughout their life; nor do their children always learn the language or continue to speak it throughout their lives. Some languages have been maintained in the home to a greater extent than have others, and this contributes to their higher ranking among languages spoken in Australia.
Who Are Aborigines?
Aborigines are Australia's indigenous people. Recent government statistics counted approximately 400,000 aboriginal people, or about 2% of Australia's total population.
Australian Aborigines migrated from somewhere in Asia (Indonesia) at least 30,000 years ago. Though they comprise 500–600 distinct groups, aboriginal people possess some unifying links. Among these are strong spiritual beliefs that tie them to the land; a tribal culture of storytelling and art; and, like other indigenous populations, a difficult colonial history.
(From here)
Aborigines have survived harsh desert conditions and have a detailed knowledge of the plants, animals and water sources available in the country.
The oldest skeleton found in Australia was discovered at Lake Mungo in south-west New South Wales, is believed to be 38,000 years old, and bears traces of ceremonial ochre. This is thought to be the oldest sign of ochre use ever discovered.
Unlike most other races, Aboriginals were not cultivators, relying instead on a form of controlled burning of vegetation known as 'fire-stick farming'. They did not develop a sense of land ownership, although Aboriginal children were taught from an early age that they belonged to the land and must respect tribal boundaries. Tribes returned to particular sites to bury their dead. Some areas were designated sacred sites because of their association with the Dreamtime, the time when the earth was formed and cycles of life and nature were initiated.
Aboriginal legends, songs and dances tell of powerful spirits who created the land and people during the Dreamtime. There is no written Aboriginal language and most of the 600 tribes spoke different dialects and languages. They rarely met except on ceremonial occasions. The tradition of the Dreamtime, however, was a unifying force and rock paintings depicting this creation period can be found dotted throughout the country. Some of the most striking and best preserved of these can be viewed at rock galleries in Kakadu National Park and other parts of northern Australia.
The arrival of white people gradually brought an end to the traditional Aboriginal way of life, when settlement began to encroach on tribal lands. Today, most Aborigines live in cities and towns or in isolated settlements near tribal lands. Few continue their nomadic ways. In recent years, white Australians have become more sensitive to the plight of Aborigines, resulting in increased health and educational services, greater recognition of Aboriginal land rights and a growing appreciation of Aboriginal culture. Specialised galleries display Aboriginal art, tools, musical instruments and artefacts. These are highly valued and avidly sought by collectors all over the world.
Government & Lands
The government of Australia has a very poor record when it comes to treatment of its Aboriginal citizens. Indigenous Australians were dispossessed of their land, despised for their culture, and marginalized, abused, and murdered. Perhaps most notorious of all the Australian policies were those that led to what has become known as the Stolen Generations. Under several federal and state programs that continued into the 1970s, the government forcibly removed Aboriginal children from their families and sent them to white families and church-run institutions for cultural reprogramming. A recent national report on the policies found that there was not a single Indigenous family that did not have at least one child taken away. Despite the deliberate genocidal nature of these programs, the government for many years refused to apologize for them. That same hostile attitude toward Aboriginal peoples was reflected in the Australian government’s long and vigorous opposition to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Fortunately, there have been improvements in the past couple of years. A change in administration led to a national apology from the government for the Stolen Generations, and the country as a whole celebrates Sorry Day. The new administration also reversed the country’s opposition to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. But there is still along way to go. Indigenous peoples on average live 17 years less than non-Indigenous people, and every measure of social and physical welfare, from infant mortality to nutrition to health, housing, education, and employment, is significantly lower for Aboriginal Australians than for non-Indigenous Australians. And all of the negative markers for disenfranchised populations—imprisonment, domestic violence, alcoholism—are much higher for Aboriginal peoples. An Aboriginal man is 13 times as likely to be in jail as a non-Indigenous Australian, and an Indigenous teenager is 28 times more likely to be in jail.
The government is making efforts to address some of these imbalances, but their handling of child abuse in Indigenous communities demonstrates how far they have to go. They enacted a set of programs that essentially let the government take control of Indigenous communities and undermined their land rights.
Indigenous groups in Australia are increasingly well organized and successful. They have in recent years made some impressive gains in land claims, but the process of claiming land rights and the legal framework in which it operates still strongly favors the state and creates unnecessary hurdles for Indigenous Peoples. Most original Indigenous land has not been restored yet.
(From here)
Nomadic Brilliance
Traditional Australian Aborigines lived a nomadic life, following the seasons and the food.With very few simple tools, used with incredible skill, the Aboriginal learned to live in the harsh and inhospitable Australian outback
It's possible that the first Aborigines in Australia hunted the Australian megafauna - giant kangaroos, giant wombat etc. to extinction.
Maybe that was when Aborigines learned to take care of natural resources and move to new hunting grounds before the old ones are depleted beyond repair.
When at rest, Aborigines lived in open camps, caves or simple structures made from bark, leaves or other vegetation. Their technology was both simple and sophisticated. Above all, it was appropriate for their way of life - ideally matched to the constraints of nomadic life.
The modern notion of possessions is alien to traditional Aboriginal culture. Material things were shared within groups. The idea that an individual could 'own' land was foreign to Aboriginal thinking.
ColonistsWhen Europeans first began to colonise Australia, towards the end of the 18th century AD, they found cultures and environments which, in hindsight, were of incalculable value.
Much of this ancient legacy has been destroyed forever in the subsequent two centuries.
Contact between new settlers, under imperial British rule, and Australia's indigenous people, led to the decimation of many Aboriginal groups due to disease, dispossession and in tens of thousands of cases, outright murder.
As populations declined and were fragmented, many unique linguistic and cultural traditions as well as valuable knowledge about the land and its fauna and flora were lost forever.
Land theft Seizure of Australia by British Imperial forces was claimed to take place under British law.
Even at that time, the British legal system had developed some traditions of fair dealings with native populations inside colonies.
These constraints were not applied on the ground in Australia. Invasion and blatant land theft by settlers were justified under the astonishing legal fiction of "Terra Nullius" - the notion that Australia was effectively unoccupied before British colonisation.
The lack of indigenous systems of land ownership (in the European tradition of private land ownership) was used to give credence the idea of Terra Nullius. The basic idea was that it was impossible to rob Aboriginal people of land, as they'd previously never owned land.
Over two centuries, the continent was progressively stolen from Aboriginal people. Settlers moved in and appropriated the overwhelming majority of Australia - either for private use or in the name of the British Crown.
Even after Australia was declared independent in 1901, Aborigines continued to be marginal to the new nation and were debarred from becoming citizens by the 1902 Australian Constitution. Citizenship was granted to Aborigines only following a national referendum in 1967.
Aboriginal groups due to disease, dispossession and in tens of thousands of cases, outright murder.
As populations declined and were fragmented, many unique linguistic and cultural traditions as well as valuable knowledge about the land and its fauna and flora were lost forever.
RACISM
As recently as the 1950's, as many as one tenth of Aboriginal babies were removed from their natural parents and taken into foster care by non-Aboriginal families, in the belief this was to everyone's benefit.
This quite recent forced removal of children on a massive scale - known as the 'Stolen Generation' - came to widespread attention only in the late 1990's.
The current Australian Government has refused to make a formal apology over the 'Stolen Generation' (in contrast to President Clinton's apology for the historical wrong of black slavery, and successive Australian Governments' demands for the Japanese to give a full apology for crimes committed during World War 2).
(From here)
THE LANGUAGE
Around 250 separate languages have been recorded throughout Australia. The following is a handful of commonly used Aboriginal words, as well as concepts which briefly describe the Aboriginal experience:
BARRAMUNDI - a large river fish found in the warm, northern waters of Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland. It is highly valued for its wonderful flavour by both Aborigines and Europeans.
BILLABONG - a small pool or lagoon.
BOOMERANG- used as both a weapon and a clapping instrument to accompany songs and dances.
BORA- initiation ceremony at which boys are admitted into the responsibilities of manhood. Bora Rings, or initiation grounds, occurred in pairs, with a larger ring and a smaller ring joined by an external pathway. The boys were brought to the larger ring by a female relative and handed over to the older men who took them to the smaller ring for the secret parts of the ceremony.
COOEE - a long, shrill call originally used by an Aborigine to communicate with someone at a distance. It has been widely adopted as a signal, especially in the bush.
COOLAMON - wooden vessel for holding water, seeds or a baby, often made from a hollowed knot of a tree. Also called a pitchi.
CORROBOREE - a dance ceremony which may be sacred or informal. In corroborees of ritual significance the dancers act out ancestral scenes.
DIDGERIDOO - long cylindrical wind instrument - usually 90-150 cm in length - originally from Arnhem Land - known as the Yidaki. Made of wood and often painted with the owner's own totem, it produces a low-pitched, resonant sound.
DREAMING - the spiritual identification of an individual or an object with a place, or with a species of plant or animal. A Dreaming Path is a place or route of Dreamtime significance along which Dreamtime ancestors travelled.
DREAMTIME - the time of creation; a set of events beyond living memory which shaped the physical, spiritual and moral world. The Dreamtime stories tell of the time when the Ancestral Beings rose from the earth in animal and human forms and created the landscape as we now see it. Dreaming is an English word, and each Aboriginal language has its own word with the same or similar meaning.
GUNYAH - a temporary bark shelter built by traditional Aborigines.
KOORI - the name Aborigines from the regions that now encompass most of New South Wales and Victoria use to refer to themselves.
MIMI - the spirit people depicted in rock and bark paintings from western Arnhem Land. Believed to be trickster spirits, the Mimi disappear into the rock walls of caves and shelters and sometimes leave their shadows behind, which appear as paintings. Paintings of the Mimi are characterised by their graceful, elongated shape.
NULLA NULLA - a hardwood club used in fighting and hunting.
PUKAMANI - ceremonial burial poles from the Tiwi communities on Bathurst and Melville Islands, north of Darwin.
RAINBOW SERPENT - a widely venerated spirit of Aboriginal mythology.
WALKABOUT - a journey on foot, as undertaken by an Aborigine in order to live in the traditional way. It originally referred to a hunting and gathering trip that would last from a few hours to a few days.
WOOMERA - wooden spear thrower.
(from here)
Languages Spoken In Australia
English is regarded as the national language of Australia.
In 1996, 85% of the population spoke only English at home and less than 1% of the population could not speak English at all. However, apart from English and Indigenous languages, more than 160 other languages were also spoken in the home.
Although languages other than English, such as German and Chinese languages, were spoken in Australia after European settlement, today's linguistic diversity stems largely from immigration since 1945.
People whose English language skills are lacking face practical problems in education, employment, and access to services. Where there is a lack of a common language there is also a need for interpreter and translation services, and programs of English instruction in schools and in other educational institutions. At the same time, many people from a non-English speaking background desire to see the use of their home language continue in Australia, for reasons of cultural continuity and identity.
In 1996 the most commonly spoken language was Italian, its 367,300 speakers making up 2.3% of the Australian population aged five years or more.
Greek (1.6% of Australians), Cantonese (1.2%), Arabic (1.0%), and Vietnamese (0.8%) ranked next. These five languages were each spoken at home by more than 100,000 people. A further 10 languages were each spoken by more than 40,000 people. In total, people who spoke one of the 15 most common languages accounted for 72% of speakers of a language other than English, and 11% of Australia's population.
The ranking of languages partly reflects the greater numbers of immigrants who have arrived from particular countries, and the number of children they have had in Australia. However, not all immigrants who speak a language other than English continue to use it at home throughout their life; nor do their children always learn the language or continue to speak it throughout their lives. Some languages have been maintained in the home to a greater extent than have others, and this contributes to their higher ranking among languages spoken in Australia.
(from here)
Why not try this exercise now?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47621644/Language%201.htm
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